How a Man Should Drink

Detail from 1875 Tribune with an article outlining how a man should drink.

Today they call it product placement.
The movie camera lingers over a soda can or candy bar or a television show features a brand of car and the producers get a few extra dollars from the favored company.
Today newsrooms have strict rules forbidding the exchange of favors for news coverage. There was no such debate on March 13, 1875 by editor Horatio S. Rembaugh.
In a column of news stories on the Board of Supervisors, San Luis Obispo Grange and Grand Jury report was this informative item.

HOW A MAN SHOULD DRINK. —Stand up straight like a man, your left side to the bar; take the glass neatly and firmly between the thumb and forefinger of the right-hand, letting the little finger drop down to near the bottom of the glass (like a lady showing a diamond ring0; swing the glass in a plane exactly corresponding with the top of the bar, until it is precisely in front of you. Just then throw the head back a little, push the chin forward, so as to leave the throat in a full, open, easy position; compress the lips tightly, draw a full breath through the nostrils, and with a graceful curve raise the glass until the rim is within about three inches of the chin. Now is the supreme moment.
Just here, turn your eyes upward, think of Little & Cochrane’s Exchange on Monterey Street, and if you are not there already, go there at once and get a drink of good liquor that will invigorate without poisoning.

Back then, women weren’t admitted to bars lest they sully their reputations. Poisoning was also real danger in those days. Multi-national brands were not a part of the landscape and a vendor willing to make an extra buck with an inferior product was a common risk that a bar patron took. Always reassuring to know the product you are drinking is poison free.

But what would happen if you asked for the drink, and a straw to go with it, and then sat down at a table to drink it, along with a napkin at the ready? Probably nothing, if you outweighed everybody else in the bar by 75 lbs, easy to do since everybody was so skinny and/or short back then. Would there be quiet talk in various corners of the bar? Interesting image.